“He remembered something, Hay.” I measured out two more cups of dried lavender and another cup of amaranth flower into a glass bowl for Verona, who was busy in the common room sewing protective mojo bags. “Not just something, but amajorthing.”
Haley held up a finger to silence me, then continued counting the crystals spread out on the counter before her, piles of smoky quartz and black tourmaline that would also be sewn into the bags. Since the vamp attack three days ago, Verona and some of the other witches blessed with protective magical skills had been working nonstop, shoring up our defenses around the house as well as around our bodies.
No one had been seriously injured that night but me, and Darius had healed me on the spot. After Ronan had killed the vamp who’d knifed me, he, Darius, Emilio, and Detective Lansky scoured the forest, identifying and then burning all the vamp bodies and ensuring none had escaped alive.
Darius had been right—they were out-of-towners, a group from the Carolinas that he suspected had connections to the three that attacked us in the morgue the night we’d gone looking for intel on Sophie’s murder. We couldn’t be certain, but the detectives thought there might be some kind of supernatural bounty on my rebels and me. Lower-level vamps were fickle with their loyalties, and after the slaughter at Norah’s house, it wouldn’t have taken much for them to get the word out that Darius Beaumont was “a traitor” to his own kind.
With so many enemies breathing down our necks—known and unknown—Verona didn’t want us taking any chances. “An unprotected witch is a sad story just begging to be written,” she’d said.
Other than a freak hailstorm the following morning, our last couple of days had been fairly low-key, and we’d spent them working on magic and spellcraft with Verona, inventorying our weapons and magical ingredients, and helping Reva practice her shadowmancy. After the attack, none of us wanted to let her out of our sights. Liam had been especially helpful in that department, spending long hours instructing her on the nature of physics, space-time, and astral travel. I didn’t understand most of what they talked about, but he made her laugh and kept her out of trouble, and with his patient tutoring, she seemed to be gaining both confidence and skill.
“That’s good, though, isn’t it?” Haley finally looked up from her task, her crystals all counted out into neat rows. “That means he’s getting his memories back.”
“What elsecouldit mean?”
Darius hadn’t remembered much—just snatches of the time we’d spent together in that cabin, the way he’d felt about me in those moments, and a little bit about the vamp attacks at the morgue and at Norah’s place. Nothing more, and nothing since, but it was the first real glimmer of hope any of us had gotten that he might actually regain his memories.
“I don’t know much about how memory works,” Haley said. “I’m the blood girl, remember?”
I gave her my best, your-my-favorite-sister smile. “Speaking of being the blood girl…”
“Gray.” She lanced me with an admonishing gaze. “I thought Deirdre was totally against the blood spell idea.”
“Deirdre isn’t here.”
Haley and I still had so many questions for our grandmother, but since her first visit to Raven’s Cape, she’d flitted in and out of our lives so often, she might as well be an apparition. Since the ice bomb and our subsequent relocation, she’d gotten slightly better at checking in by phone. But even then, whenever I tried to question her about the legacy or our mother or anything else having to do with the past, she suddenly had a hundred reasons to get off the phone.
Since I’d told Haley about our sisterhood and our bloodline, she hadn’t even gotten time alone with Deirdre yet.
But our family dynamics, crazy as they were, would have to wait.
“She’s just worried it will summon our ancestors,” I said.
“Which will set in motion your end of the deal with Sebastian, imprison the ghosts of our relatives, and probably get you shipped off to hell where you’ll spend the rest of eternity worshipping a glorified pimp who calls himself a prince.”
“I appreciate your thorough and vivid imagination, Hay.” I sealed up the jars of lavender and amaranth and set them back on the shelf with the other non-lethal herbs. “But I don’t think it will work that way. Magic is all about intention. As long as we’re clear on our desired outcome, we should be fine.”
“Should be fine? You know that’s just a stand-in phrase for ‘I might blow everything to shit but I don’t care becausereasons?’”
“Honestly? I don’t even think the ancestor thing is Deirdre’s main issue. She’s just… I don’t know. She thinks it’s a distraction.” I lowered my voice, crushing a bud of lavender between my thumb and forefinger. “She’s worried that I haven’t spent enough time with the other witches yet. She says if I’m going to lead them, I need to roll up my sleeves, get over my trust issues, and start participating as one of them.”
“She has a point.”
“I know, but she’s also missing one. A big one.”
“Which is?”
“We can do all the physical workouts Emilio and Elena come up with. We can learn sword fighting and martial arts. We can crush herbs and meditate and do group spells and swap secrets from everyone’s books of shadows every single day, and yes, all of those things are important—I’m not saying otherwise. But they pale in comparison to the most powerful tools we have: Ourselves. Our bonds. Our own unique magic. Our instincts.”
“Yes!” Haley pointed at me, a grin lighting up her face. “That’s the kind of poster-worthy shit you should be saying to the group, Silversbane.”
“Get me a bullhorn and some glitter cannons, and we’ll think about it.” I flicked the lavender bud at her, and she laughed again. “Anyway, I’m serious. Without his memories, Darius isn’t whole. He still has instincts, but he doesn’t remember his experience. All the things he’s learned and honed along the way. All the people he’s learned to trust—
“And learned to love,” she sing-songed, batting her lashes at me.
“And love, yes. Love and friendship are bonds that strengthen magic, Haley. Witches, vampires, shifters, demons, fae, humans… We’re all stronger for it.”
Haley ran her hand over the neat rows of her crystals, a soft sigh escaping her lips.
